


(s)he never asked me once about the wrong i did

by thorinsoakenshielded



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: M/M, also the characterisation is so wrong it hurts, apologies if youre from any place mentioned, not american and i'm lazy with research, roadtrip au, so this is all creative licence, title from hozier, will be making a playlist to go alongside
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-21
Updated: 2015-04-10
Packaged: 2018-03-18 11:27:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3567980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thorinsoakenshielded/pseuds/thorinsoakenshielded
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>we wouldn't be seen dead here in the day</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. down on the west coast they got a saying

**Author's Note:**

> I'm paraphrasing everything I put about the places I mention.
> 
> Inspired by rulerofxbox's joellis roadtrip au tag on tumblr.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> and here we go, chapters will come out whenever

He hasn't been back here for years, San Francisco was just a blimp, a moment in time he should have forgotten but hasn't. Adam's resting in the passenger seat, he drove them through Arizona, through Phoenix and along the Nevada- Arizona border. They were gonna go through it to vegas just because but what were they gonna do when they got there? They can't gamble or drink, well, Joel can but still.

They're cruising down the PCH, their map buried under the blankets and hoodies for the nights when they're too far gone and the nearest town is 12 miles away. Its a squeeze but they manage. Theres books behind them too, partly because Joel's a cliche fuck and as much as he hates to admit it, Adam loves himself some Vonnegut. 

They're going all the way through to Washington state, to a little town called index, they'd heard about it from griffon, her parents had taken her there for a week a couple of months ago. She said it was a parallel universe to Texas. Perfect for Adam and Joel.

Joel's looking towards the traffic when Adam makes a noise from the passenger seat, 'How much longer?'

'A couple of miles, I think. Maybe ten or fifteen, I can't remember', Joel answers.

'Oh, okay. D'ya want me to look at the map?', Adam inquires. 

Joel shoots him a look, Adam quickly quiets down.

'What even is there for us to do in San Francisco anyway?', Joel asks.

'I don't know. You asked me the same question when we were going to LA and look what we did there.', Adam looks over at Joel, the first rays of the Californian sun making a silhouette of Joel's face.

'Fine, I was right though.'

'What about?'

'The PCH being the longest thing ever, you chose to ignore me though.' They'd both had an argument before they'd left LA about what route to take, Joel wanted to go east and upwards, to get to San Francisco quicker but Adam was adamant to go west, Joel humored him and now it's taken them six hours to do a trip that only takes three to complete.

Adam shakes his head and turns to look out of the window. Joel glances at Adam and quickly flicks his eyes back to the nearly deserted highway because no one in their right mind would be driving towards San Francisco at six in the morning.

Joel sees a sign overhead stating that San Francisco is eight miles away. He reaches over and nudges Adam who's engrossed in a copy of Wuthering Heights they bought at a secondhand bookstore in Albuquerque for 3 dollars and points upwards. Adam whoops and smiles over at Joel, who's shaking his head at Adam's childlike manner. 

The eight miles go faster than expected, early morning traffic and a very exhausted toll booth attendant help it along. They stop at a gas station before they hit the city limits, to fill the car and themselves up. They watch the sun come up over the rolling hills. They can already tell the day's going to be glorious, the sunrays already warming their cheeks.

Entering the city is refreshing, the last one they were in was Los Angeles and that was just full of smog and humidity. Neither of them were fans.

They're going through a residential area, bungalows mixed with Victorian styled buildings. They go past one that's black and blue and Adam takes a picture. 

'If we were a house.'

Joel just keeps on driving. Before they reach the city centre, they stop at a ma-and-pop diner. It's nearly empty, with only an old man sat at a table reading the paper and a man dressed in a suit sat at the counter, scrolling through his phone. 

Joel and Adam sit at a corner booth, the dark green leather of their seats a far cry from the stiff ones of the car. A waitress comes over, they order coffee and nothing else.

'Y'know I'm starting to think that this wasn't a bad idea.' Joel says, looking around the diner. Suit guy's off his phone, now he's searching through his briefcase.

Adam looks up at Joel from where he's been messing with the salt shaker. 'Me too, I mean this was something I just said, didn't think we'd actually do it. I think we needed to do this though. One last big adventure before you leave for uni, just like the beginning.' Adam chuckles at the memories of weekend train rides to Dallas.

Joel smile, 'Stop acting like it's the world ending. I'm only gonna be in Chicago, you can come and visit.'

The look Adam gives him makes Joel want to grab Adam's hands and hold on them like the first time, when Adam was a freshman and Joel was a sophomore and they were on the outskirts of Austin and Adam got scared and Joel thought he looked so precious and Joel wanted to hold on to him forever.

But he doesn't and so he settles for his own hands and Adam settles for the salt shaker.


	2. it's the sound of the unlocking and the lift away

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> second chapter, ayyyyy  
> next one will be out tomorrow  
> [there's a playlist for this now](https://8tracks.com/dark-paradise/turned-left-and-never-looked-back)

It was Adam's idea at first. He and Joel were sat on a log at the creek. Joel had just finished his exams and Adam had been moved up in all his classes. They're got a fire going, it's weak and small but it provides them with enough light to know how much whiskey they're pouring into their cups and how much coke they're cutting it with.

They were talking about what happens next. They both know Joel's moving north, the university of Illinois has this amazing drama program. They also both know Adam's staying out. The night's bittersweet.

As the night goes on, the conversations take a turn. They start talking about what they think adult life's gonna be like, they also start talking about their dreams and that's how they get onto talking about what they're doing now.

Adam's dad is a sentimental man, maybe it was just the path of life that made Adam get the notion of a roadtrip. His dad's always reminiscing about something. Many a night were spent sat on the porch at the Ellis' house drinking iced tea, Adam's parents had moral clearly, listening to Adam's father talk about his 'Great Roadtrip of 1982' when he was 19, speaking tomes about the winding roads of the rocky mountains of Alaska. They've both got their licences, Joel's got a car and Adam knows his dad would be apathetic to their plight. Maybe it's just the pieces coming together. 

And so they talk about it that night, Adam has an idea in his head of a route all along the coasts, against the Canadian border, but it gets shot down, they both have to be back for the end of August and they're nearly out of June. Joel proposes a compromise, a coin flip, heads they go right, tails they go left.

It lands on tails.

And the plan rolls into motion. They decide to do only one coast, West. They map it out on the one they find in the back of Joel's car. They put a cross on Austin and follow the coastline upwards until they reach Washington and then Joel remembers a name, Index.

It takes them a couple of days, to bring it up to their parents, Joel's are against it at first, but nonetheless they get it. They were young once too. Adam's parents are split, his dad is on board but his mum gives off a vibe of apprehension. There's silent debates between his parents but she bends at the eleventh hour and agrees.

They set off at seven in the morning a couple of days after she does. They have three grand between the two of them as emergency money and enough precooked non-perishables in the boot of the car to last them all the way. By the end of the day, they've covered enough area to be only 15 miles away from New Mexico. Texan traffic serves them well.

They spend their first night of the trip at a nondescript hotel just off the motorway. They both call their parents, Joel's joke about the house being quieter and tell him to be safe. Adam's dad tells them of these diners he ate at when he went on his trip, his mother sternly tells them to stay together and to make sure to eat something.

They set off early again the next morning. The July heat already evident as they drive down the highway, they've both go their windows down but it's not enough.

'Why did we decide July and August would be a good time to do this?' Adam groans.

Joel sighs.


	3. i'm going back to cali, cali.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> third chapter, get on my level.  
> and we're back in san fran.  
> also the whole joel's old house being in SF isn't fiction, he mentioned it on the podcast (#298)

They spend the rest of the day, walking around San Francisco. They somehow end up on Folsom Street, it's daytime and there's tourists up and down the street so they don't really see it in all it's sordid glory. They walk around the Marina, Adam takes pictures of the horizon, the view of the Golden Gate Bridge. He takes a couple of Joel when he isn't looking.

They also walk past Joel's old house. The colour of it hasn't changed, it's still a sunshine yellow with white shutters. Joel doesn't remember much about it. The most he can though are summer days with the windows open, the salt breeze cooling the house down. He can remember running down the street with his brother, laughing. It's nostalgic in a way.

They eat at one of those hipster restaurants where they sell Coca-Cola in glass bottles and have words such as, 'Craft' in ornate typography as prints on the wall. Joel and Adam have never felt more out of place.

They go back to their car afterwards. They'd left at the diner they'd gotten coffee at that morning. Adam's on driving duty out of California, well, for the most part. How it works is that every state they swap over. Joel drove them out of Texas so Adam assumes it to be fair they take shifts.

Joel plugs his iPod in when they get into the car, the Gaslight Anthem beating through the speakers. Adam nods his head to the music as he puts the car into first gear and sets off down the road towards the motorway. They're heading north towards Santa Rosa, they don't know what's there, but that's the whole point. They don't know what to expect from where they go. The most important thing is that they go and find out together. It's important.

Joel watches the darkened streets of San Francisco rush by outside of his window. He feels like he's becoming Adam's dad.


	4. a man can never dream these kinds of things

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ayyyo   
> apologies to anyone from santa rosa and florida, i'm sure they're lovely places

Santa Rosa turns out to be a bust, Joel and Adam both think it's a good thing that the coin landed on tails. It's an old town full of older people, it's the state of Florida in a town.

They leave only a couple of hours after they arrive. They stand out like sore thumbs, Joel's tall and lanky and Adam's broader than he should be at age seventeen and he's got the facial hair to boot, you can see what runs them out.

The traffic is just the worst going up to a town called Ukiah. They're running out of state miles, a quarter of the way through. Joel's still got his iPod plugged in, it's playing Oasis, Liam Gallagher's voice permeating the atmosphere. The traffic doesn't let up until there's forty five miles to go.

'Turn off here.' Joel breaks through with, pointing to a rest area at the side of the road. Adam puts the indicators on and turns right, coming to a stop just before the safety barrier. 

'We sleeping here then?' Adam mumbles.

'Dude, it's nearly one in the morning, Ukiah can wait.' Joel says, clambering between the two front seats. Adam sighs and turns the key in the ignition off. Joel's sorting the blankets equally, they'd stopped at a Target just before they'd entered New Mexico and bought as many as they could. Joel's also bought five of his hoodies with them. It may be summer but the nights get cold, even in California.

Adam can't go between the two front seats and so he goes out of the driver's side and back through the right back door. Joel's scrolling through his phone, legs covered with floral throw blankets and torso covered with a Longhorns hoodie that he's had longer than he's been friends with Adam. Adam lifts the blankets as he gets in and sits down and close the door.

'We need to leave by sunrise, okay?' Adam says. Joel hums in response.

Adam locks the doors and takes one of the hoodies and rolls it up in a makeshift pillow and puts it behind his head.

Joel's legs are in his lap before he even starts snoring.


End file.
